The impact of multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have on development is hotly debated, but few doubt their power and influence. This study examines the concepts that have powerfully influenced development policy and more broadly looks at the role of ideas in international development institutions and how they have affected current development discourse. The authors analyse why some ideas are taken up by these institutions, how the ideas travel within the systems and how they are translated into policy, modified, distorted or resisted. It explores a very broad range of ideas and institutions and provides thorough and detailed case studies in the context of broader theoretical analysis. The volume explores topics such as poverty, global governance, sustainable development and the environment and provides detailed case studies on the World Bank, the WTO, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, UN Development Programme and the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, which should be of particular interest and use to advanced undergraduate students and scholars. INDICE 1. Introduction: Power and Ideas in Multilateral Institutions 2. The Informal Sector: Biography of an Idea 3. Policy Stories & Knowledge Regimes : The Case of International Population Policy 4. The World Bank and the Environment 5. Sustainable Development & the World Trade Organisation 6. Social Capital and the World Bank 7. Hegemony, Neo- Liberal "Good Governance" and the IMF 8. Balancing Between East & West: The Asian Development Bank Policy on Good Governance 9. "Good Governance" and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) 10. The Evolution of the Concept of Poverty in Multilateral Financial Institutions 11. The Role of Ideas IN the UN Development Programme 12. The Development Discourse in the Multilateral System 13. Contesting Policy Ideas from Below 14. The Power of Ideas.